Palworld, the monster-taming phenomenon that rocketed to success with eight million copies sold in its first week, is already grappling with a serious issue: cheating. Developer Pocketpair confirmed reports of cheating on official servers and released a recent patch containing “countermeasures against various cheats and exploits.”
Pocketpair acknowledged that this is a significant challenge, stating that “it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating immediately.” This vulnerability stems from Palworld’s reliance on client-side validation, meaning players can manipulate aspects like item spawning and character stats. The concern is particularly pressing due to Palworld’s planned future implementation of player-versus-player (PvP) gameplay. Unchecked cheating in PvP could create a frustrating and unfair experience for legitimate players.
It’s important to remember that this is still the same small team that made the game. They may have a lot of money, but growing takes time and energy, and it won’t happen rapidly out of nowhere. We’re only a week after release, and it’s far bigger than what the developers were likely expecting. They still have to update and fix other things, so they won’t be quick to handle these cheating issues.
The team may hire a few new employees in a month, but asking them to get a lot of new hires to combat one problem leads to teams having to lay off when things settle down, so I suggest patience for everyone involved. However, Pocketpair is taking steps to address the problem. The recent patch represents an initial response, but the developer is clear that it won’t stop there.
Xyrem, the video game cheat prevention organization the Anti-Cheat Police Department, gave some suggestions to IGN. They recommended shifting key gameplay elements to server-side validation and potentially implementing dedicated anti-cheat software, which are likely avenues for further action. This kind of stuff sounds good but tends to make games slower, which would hurt the game.
Pocketpair is likely doing its best to handle the stress that comes with success. They’ve got a huge fan and player base, and making bad moves early on would hurt them immensely. We’ll have to wait and see what more is done.
Comments